Interludes and Inter-“missions”

 The story isn’t over for those who have followed the events and thoughts in “Along the Hong River” just as it isn’t for us in our renewed life along the Oklahoma River. It is now a full two years since we emptied the storage unit which held our earthly belongings, thinning again our possessions,  before reassembling the puzzle into the space of our home on Northwest 17th Street. A lot of the content of our daily activity is not terribly different than it was while we lived in Hanoi, while some things are decidedly different.

We still rise early (the 5:30 am alarm is mostly redundant since the biologic clock is quite firmly set it would seem) and engage in morning exercise and gospel study. We use that study period to seek guidance and revelatory ideas that will help us lift and serve those whom we may meet or connect with during that day and days ahead. My friend and missionary department proselyting guru David Weidman counseled me to inquire of the Lord each day as to which of our elders or sisters may need an emotional touch of some sort that day. More often than not, when I have done that, the resulting experience has been rich and tender. The lesson for me is that the endowment of love for our fellow missionaries, and for the saints and friends that came into our lives there, carries with it the responsibility and opportunity to continue to minister and grow with them.

It wasn’t very long after we had been home that I realized how treacherous the period of  life following a mission was for most returning missionaries. So many critical decisions were to be made, that would lock them into patterns and positions that would work powerfully for their good, or for ill. Selecting the right spouse seemed to me the most potent of these decisions. So for many months now, I have prayed and fasted for them in that regard, sometimes as a whole, and sometimes for particular ones. The readily obtained answers to these pleadings are beginning to accrue. This month, four new families were founded in the Holy Temples, and lives full of hope and anticipation have been launched together with able and worthy spouses. If the ultimate measure of our efforts is to be measured in the character and devotion of the grandchildren of those missionaries, then we have reason to hope for good inasmuch as so many have begun well, taking to heart the admonition to “do it right from the beginning.” We rejoice in their joy, and hope in their hope.

 

Similarly, as the number of offspring from these marriages begins to grow and these young fresh spirits make their entrance onto the stage of life, we feel great anticipation and excitement. Mission grandchildren, as we have come to refer to these offspring, are a big part of our joy as well. We only regret that limitations on time, resources, and the current travel restrictions have cut off direct contact with these joys, as well as our own biologic grandchildren. 

In another aspect of the heritage of these genealogies, we have the on-going opportunity to see many of the new converts and even former investigators of our time in Vietnam stepping forward to serve full-time missions. For many of these Pioneers, this is not a trivial decision, nor even entirely their own. Our dear friend L was baptized in 2017, the only member of her family, of course. As a young woman who had entered the workforce following school, her family’s next expectation was for her to marry and begin a family. But to make matters more complicated, a sibling was pursuing a career in the Public Security arm of the government. As is well known to all in that division, a primary responsibility is to oversee potentially seditious religious organizations, and therefore any officer with personal OR family connections to religious organizations is black-marked to not advance into increased duties. Hence that same sibling looked upon L as blocking their ability to move up in the security apparatus, and as the oldest child, he easily recruited both parents into opposing L’s participation, attendance, and support for the Church. 

But Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles, after much counsel, prayer, fasting, and gentle persuasion, God did make a wall fall down. What tremendous joy we felt when the text came from L detailing with ebullient joy that both parents had granted permission for L to serve a mission. To make matters even sweeter, we know a certain returned missionary who will be waiting for the completion of that service. So our fasting for L and L’s parents, also meant fasting for a future spouse of infinite worth and high commitment and faith. It was two for one!

And so the rivers flow and we shall both watch from the banks, and at times follow the currents.

Conference Season

In Vietnam the dry season has a particular meaning for rest, rejuvenation and preparation. In some areas the more lax work schedule meant also that certain vices like drunkenness and abuse might creep in. Once the rains begin however, the workload shifts into higher gear though, and signals it is time to put away idle mischief and wrong-doing. 

Growing up as a boy in Utah with a good number of relatives on various sides of the family, I became used to the “reunion season” that came in conjunction with summertime each year, and on occasional other days of note. I had a lot of cousins, most of whom seemed so much older than I and whose names I could never recall, given that we only saw each other one time each year in many instances. But it was evident to me that the older aunts and uncles really thrived on being together and seeing the changes in the rising generation of nieces, nephews, children and grandchildren. Getting together with those same cousins now continues to be joyful, and one aspect of life we have missed while serving far from any of them. Yet in another sense, we have become more united with them as we have read and shared in their missions to far flung corners of the world that we are unlikely to ever visit. (See http://belgiancaldwells.blogspot.com/ and TrinidadThackerays.blogspot.com/, for example.)

The gathering of Latter-Day Saints for conferences is a habit instituted from the earliest beginnings of the church, but I believe has even more ancient origins in Old Testament festivals and holy days, the Passover in spring, the days of atonement and new year in the fall, with lesser festivals in between. For modern Latter-Day Saints, these are similar times of reunion, a true gathering of brothers and sisters in a wonderful extended gospel family. There is the same joyful renewal of acquaintance I witnessed among my older cousins, aunts and uncles as a boy. And there is also the same marveling at the growth of the younger ones among us, new additions to the family, new skills and experiences gained, and new responsibilities taken on.

Mission presidents have the opportunity to preside over the conferences of nascent church units each year and that has been our privilege with the first conferences of the recently formed districts in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. In Hanoi the shared sense of becoming something significant was evident as the District had to rent a hotel ballroom in order to accommodate all those who wished to attend, and the number attending this signal event exceeded by 10% the average attendance at Sacrament meetings of the three (now four) branches included in the District. And of course, any reunion has not truly happened unless it is recorded in countless photo groups of family members!

The experience for the southern saints was no less singular. Instead of using a hotel however, they crowded into all the rooms of the villa in Thu Duc now serving the new branch by the same name. The chapel space and large classrooms were each filled to capacity with saints, some of whom were seeing the new space for the first time. Video and audio feeds from the chapel were broadcast in the entire building so all could feel and see the spirit of the Lord. And then after the conference sessions were over they spilled onto the covered portico and grassy grounds to celebrate with a shared meal while the concluding business of ordinations and settings apart needed to complete the goal of more fully “establishing the church” were carried out.

The road map was laid out for the next six months of District growth and development, along with a view of the longer term organizational and personal development needed, which include matching the District Leadership to the branch training and support needs, as well as continuing to sustain a similar path of organizational development as the smaller branches migrate from being very basic units to more “adolescent” branches, and ultimately mature branches yearning to be wards. From the early 2017 division that created the Quan Sau branch for example, the growth in missionary work and strengthening and finding members has seen them grow from a very small unit to one that can now support and sustain a three-hour meeting schedule, and are ready to organize a small primary for the rambunctious boys who come with parents and relatives each week. Like time-lapse photography, the conferences allow us to see dramatic changes in the church from a few hours of meeting together twice a year.

For our missionaries, particularly our senior missionaries who serve quite far apart and can often feel isolated or disconnected from each other and the greater good they are part of, we have found it useful to organize semi-annual reunions or conferences as well. The most recent one, nestled tightly in between the two District Conferences, was held in the highlands of Vietnam, about 40 km from Buon Ma Thuot on Lak Lake. The setting was quiet and restful, and the landscape and views across the lake and valley were beautiful, particularly in the still of the early mornings. We learned a lot from being together, and the conversations over meals and on outings were as important in building comraderie and esprit de corps as the updates on our efforts and fine-tuning our mission culture.

In some areas there is always harvesting to do

The day's work quickly threshed

I enjoyed seeing more into a sub-culture of Vietnam in the area, which is populated by many M’Nong and Ede people, among others. Their characteristic “long houses” are extended family homes which do not feature the traditional “ban tho” or ancestral shrine seen in most traditional Vietnamese homes. It was also remarkable to see the prevalence of Christianity among these groups. Christian churches by my rough observations easily outnumbered Buddhist shrines along the routes we traveled.

Men and Women enter separately traditionally

Feed corn put out to dry- the wandering cow liked it until the slingshot-wielding boy on the porch got to him!

Christian Burying ground- note the number of small infant plots

Zone Conferences are also wonderful reunions as well for us. The three zones all held day-long conferences following their respective District Conference. While coming far more frequently than most other conferences, they also serve to establish the church more firmly, not through sustaining new leaders, but by giving young leaders the chance to practice training others, by providing spiritual uplift and renewal of friendships and ties with other missionaries. We discovered in one for example, that we had almost an entire MTC group of nine missionaries serving together in different capacities in one Zone. They loved being together again, and some were entreating me to make them companions again!

Although we plan and prepare these in counsel with the zone leaders and sister training leaders, I am always pleased when new things come out of them. Sometimes in order to really learn, we need to be standing and speaking. Then revelation comes. The “aha!” light comes on in our minds and important answers are given. That has been the most important lesson we have learned, and tried to impress on our fellow-servants. Christ leads his church and instructs his saints, and he does so particularly when they gather together in one accord, in conferences.

For example, we talked a lot about the ritual of baptism, and why we need to experience a ritual rather than just signing our name on a form to enter the church. The connection to our covenant in being baptized to “always remember him” then became apparent. I can’t recall how many times I have signed my name to something- reports, checks (back in the paper check days), receipts, invoices, deeds and who knows what else. But I can clearly remember the experience of being baptized by my father at age 8. It is indelibly etched into my memory, and helps me to always remember Him.

Passing by, my new friend invited me in!

We also talked and thought a lot about Christ’s atonement, by which I mean his willingness to personally assume the pain and suffering for sins (our own or those of others, such as Adam) that would separate us from God, our Heavenly Father, thus allowing us again to enter His presence, in complete purity and wholeness. It’s a concept that can be difficult to grasp. But as my assistants demonstrated teaching this, they likened it to an everyday experience here, a rice cooker. The hard grains are ultimately made delicious by the addition of water and controlled heat, and so our lives are changed and made delicious when we allow the Savior’s love (“living water”) to surround us and enlarge our souls. Don’t see it that way? Well, it made sense at the time.

I thought of how much of my life I have dealt with cancer- diagnosis and treatment. Then I saw that Christ offers us both the correct means of diagnosis, as he lovingly guides us through the spirit to recognize our sins and weaknesses, and then to the complete and total healing that can come as we bring those burdens to him who carries “healing in his wings.” It is the quintessence of “personalized medicine” for the soul. We don’t have to look very far in our lives to find “types” of Christ, things that teach us what he is like, what his sacrifice means, and how we can begin to bring it into our lives, whether to soften us up and make us more “delicious” or to heal the gaping wounds in our spirit, both those that are self-inflicted through our own folly, or those that are imposed because we were a bystander, or even an intended victim.

I’ve become a fan of conferences, these marvelous times of renewal of relationships, of strengthening one another, of being edified and bolstered, of receiving revelation and insight. Thankfully there are still a few more such experiences ahead in my life.

Approaching the handoff zone

When the snow had been shoveled off the track at our kids’ high school in Maine, track practices could begin. Most years that was possible by April. Among the conditioning workouts and the individual event training soon came the rehearsal of skills for the various relay events that my children occasionally were part of. For each of these events, whether a sprint relay like the 4x100, or a mixed distance event like the medley or the  4x800 meter distance, or some other combination, unquestionably the most critical few seconds are those when the baton is passed from one runner, nearly spent and exhausted, to the next, standing fresh and eager to run. Well executed, the transition could mean the difference in a place on the podium and a team record, or frustration with time lost or even a disqualification for passing the baton outside the specified area. Watching them learn and practice their timing, communication and coordination skills made me appreciate their results all the more. But execution when they were engaged in the excitement and exhaustion of the race was often more challenging than they had anticipated.

In the medical field we have learned that a similar high risk situation is the transition in care, from one baton-carrying provider to another, whether that be doctors, nurses or others. And since these kind of transitions happen many times each day, even small risks multiplied by countless patients mean that someone somewhere is going to suffer when a key detail of their care is missed and the baton falls on the track, or remains in the hand of the prior runner.

Mission presidents in some respects are relay runners too, and care providers, who have to hand off to the next runner an important baton. Well actually it is a host of batons. We don’t get spring practice to rehearse the process with the next phase runner. But we do benefit from some institutional experience and a standard checklist to follow covering a few of the critical hand-overs that must occur seamlessly. But since each mission president functions in a very different setting, even though the title may appear similar, the task ahead for us is uncharted in many respects.

One of the rather unique, contrary to prevailing wisdom kinds of things about church leadership is the very short hand-over allotted to many offices. For Mission Presidents the overlap between arrival of new and departure of the old is rarely longer than 24 hours and may be an hour or less in some circumstances. Couple that with the sleep deprivation of jet lag and it would seem almost certain that the baton will fall to the ground somewhere.  But there is wisdom in this approach, foolish as it seems to conventional wisdom. The mission president must approach his task with enough of a feeling of inadequacy, and enough of ignorance, to always seek the guidance he needs from above, not from the former occupant of his new chair.

While this is especially important for the missionaries to whom he will minister, it also has value with regard to dealing with members and other church leaders. The young missionaries, whom of course we love and think are the best, get to start afresh with the impressions they will make as they meet with their new president, free from any detailed briefing and hence bias from me.

So what is on the checklist? Aside from the details of how to find the washing machine, and the wifi password in the mission home, we will provide to the new mission president a sample suggested schedule for his first month. I sat down to look at that the other day and mapped something out that included visits to interview missionaries in their apartments or districts, some zone conferences, meetings with the district presidencies, speaking in various branches, a couple of days for a whirlwind trip to visit saints in the mission branch and meetings with his counselors in that branch, undoubtedly some last minute temple recommend interviews as people in hords head to the temple in July, and all culminating with a rather significant departure of the very best of his missionaries- 10 of them, almost 20% of his forces. He might take a peek at that and decide to never unpack!

With that schedule in mind, I see my next few weeks filled with 1) efforts to try to resolve problems that have lingered so that he doesn’t need to even know about them, and 2) endeavors to fortify the members and missionaries such that there is a sort of “autopilot” effect for the first few weeks. We have met with two dozen people this week on varying matters of progress- missionary applications, priesthood ordinations, temple recommends and support applications- as we have worked in Ho Chi Minh City, An Giang, Tien Giang, Tra Vinh, Can Tho and parts in-between.

These visits have impressed upon me how much progress has been taking place while we have been here, and often while we were not looking. The gospel grows along family trees, and seeing now more and more families eagerly preparing to make eternal promises with each other and with God as part of his plan to bring to pass our eternal life and happiness emphasizes that powerfully. So where two years ago was just one hard working young man who was a member of the church, there is now a three generation family of engaged and growing members of the church. Where once was a small group of three members and a few other friends meeting to pray and sing in a tiny upstairs room, is now a group of often thirty members of all generations and ages in several extended families engaged in the work of loving and serving one another- even when they have differences of understanding, and bearing with one another’s weaknesses. I will resist the temptation to go on into boasting, but not the opportunity to “glory in the Lord” as did Ammon. It is a wonderful work and a wonder that has come to pass, and is still coming to pass.

It is often small details that seem to point out the Lord’s hand in this ministry. One such was evident today, as we traveled with Judy Battchi, a long term friend, who has been visiting, and just happens to speak Mandarin fluently. We visited my counselor, deep in the Mekong delta in the small village outside of Bac Lieu where he lives with one daughter. But today, of all days to visit, his other daughter from Cambodia, and who is also a member, though perhaps less frequently attending church there, was visiting. And with her she brought her Chinese husband, who speaks Vietnamese hardly at all, but who could easily speak with Judy and ask all sorts of questions that have been unanswered in their years of marriage.

The miracles, small and large, will continue, even as we stumble into the baton exchange zone, tired and panting, and therefore willing to hand the task to younger and fresher legs, and with complete confidence that the grace of a loving God will compensate for our inability or lack of practice in handing off each and every unfinished detail. Our checklist of checklists continues to grow!